Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
Yep. Lots of similar coverage in the FT, which I tend to trust.
The trouble is we still think we're a global power, when really we're a second order economy heavily based on financial services, land banking, and tax exile for the plutocrats of other states. Like it or not, those people are heavy contributors to the treasury, and we force them out at our peril.
It will be a fairer society with them gone, but also a poorer society.
But see also my post below about the twenty somethings saddled with debt going sod this and moving to Dubai. Long term, I'm less worried about the non doms leaving, and more about a brain drain of Brits who see the country as cooked, the property ladder as a ponzi scheme, and realise the grass is greener elsewhere. That is the real danger. People giving up on the UK, turning us all into a kind of greater Eastbourne.
Don't underestimate the psychological impact of those student loans. That, plus frozen tax thresholds, NHS approaching 50% of public spending and insane intergenerational inequality (particularly via housing) means that for many aspirational graduates the UK offers very little at all.
My I suggest, that using the PM's latest gaffe to good-ish use, we PBers hearafter resolve to communicate any common/personal abuse to any other PBer, in the form of a spoonerism.
For example, instead of yelling at a "bitchy old queen" hurl ones aspersions at a "quitchy old bean".
Bound to take some of the edge off!
Ironically, one of the classic original Spoonerisms was ‘Queer old Dean” for “Dear old Queen”…
Mary Hinge.
Whilst looking far and wide for possible houses/plots we saw one for sale in Warwickshire or Northants (I can't remember which) in Minge Lane.
Surely residents of Minge Lane you could collectively put in to the council to gentrify that to Fanny Way or similar?
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
Yep. Lots of similar coverage in the FT, which I tend to trust.
The trouble is we still think we're a global power, when really we're a second order economy heavily based on financial services, land banking, and tax exile for the plutocrats of other states. Like it or not, those people are heavy contributors to the treasury, and we force them out at our peril.
It will be a fairer society with them gone, but also a poorer society.
But see also my post below about the twenty somethings saddled with debt going sod this and moving to Dubai. Long term, I'm less worried about the non doms leaving, and more about a brain drain of Brits who see the country as cooked, the property ladder as a ponzi scheme, and realise the grass is greener elsewhere. That is the real danger. People giving up on the UK, turning us all into a kind of greater Eastbourne.
I was listening to a popular Gen-Z podcast the couple of days ago, who also run a massive podcasting business making brain rot podcasts for your Love Island type people (don't ask why I was listening). I was quite taken aback how they were very open about how many of their peers have left, and that they are very worried about budget and were considering moving particularly if the sell a big stake in their company.
Please, Conservative party and speaking as a member and a former MP layoff the Prime Minister’s children grow up This pathetic war on dresses and children just shows that you have nothing else to say. I am ashamed. https://x.com/NSoames/status/1839015351490912280
So which Conservatives is he talking about? I thought it was mostly hoi polloi such as reside on here that were discussing it.
Indeed, they've been virtually silent on the matter.
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
Please, Conservative party and speaking as a member and a former MP layoff the Prime Minister’s children grow up This pathetic war on dresses and children just shows that you have nothing else to say. I am ashamed. https://x.com/NSoames/status/1839015351490912280
So which Conservatives is he talking about? I thought it was mostly hoi polloi such as reside on here that were discussing it.
Indeed, they've been virtually silent on the matter.
1) Don't interrupt your opponents when they are daily making things worse.
2) Like expenses, everybody will be exposed to some degree. And today's gotcha media, there is no rooms of nuance or explanation. Furthermore, all the focus has been the supermarket sweep-esque nature of the gifts (Tories will have also accepted things like tickets), we have lost the original story which is pass given, when was it actually withdrawn, and other donors got impartial civil service jobs. And like expenses, the media loves the "ohhh look Taylor Swift concert", not the parts of the story that require some leg work e.g. these value for freebies, do they look right, who / why was with them.
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
All the rumours I have heard, some of them - let us say - from extremely reliable and intimate sources, indicate this is the wrong trail to pursue. But the "rumours" are not unfounded. It;s time for a Naughty Kir Royale
Honestly, if Starmer was secretly doing a Mark Oaten or Keith Vazeline, it would probably improve my perception of the bland bastard. If he was a regular at swingers clubs. Or spanking emporiums. At least we'd be being governed by someone who's lived a little. Rather than someone who wants to ban smoking in pub gardens and limit us all to 2/3rds of a pint.
The only real sin in this life is being a boring prude...
The business about a pint being too much puzzled me. In my youth it was common to come across men who would regularly drink 5 or more pints in an evening pub session. If a pint is too big, there's always the half pint.
One New Year's Eve in Hereford I drank 13 pints. It was five months before my A Levels
13 fucking pints. What was I on? I was clearly indestructible (a theory I tested to, er, destruction, for many years after)
Beer is generally stronger than it used to be. Tastes change. I'm not saying in your particular case but the general 'when I was a youth, they'd be men in t'pub who always drank eight pints after the shift at factory' etc were drinking beers at 3.5% or thereabouts. Rehydrating and getting calories down quickly was important.
Yes, I am sure that is true
No way even as a strapping 17 year old lad I could drink 13 pints of 5.3% beer
Probably it was shite 3.7% Carling Black Label. Still an impressive amount, tho...
When we were that age did pubs and offies even specify the alcohol content of beer? I can't remember it, and it was surely in the interest of brewers and pubs to keep the beer weak so that more was drunk.
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
I not sure if you can receive Sky but you should play back Beth Rigby's report just now which was very forthright about the mess Starmer has got into and understand whatever is reported or referenced on here is from the media and broadcast media and they have, and always have had, a gotcha approach and on this story they really do think this is very much in their DNA
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
I know what you are thinking, wouldn’t life be better under TRUSS’s mini budget? Indeed, the great lady said the very same herself earlier this week.
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
All the rumours I have heard, some of them - let us say - from extremely reliable and intimate sources, indicate this is the wrong trail to pursue. But the "rumours" are not unfounded. It;s time for a Naughty Kir Royale
Honestly, if Starmer was secretly doing a Mark Oaten or Keith Vazeline, it would probably improve my perception of the bland bastard. If he was a regular at swingers clubs. Or spanking emporiums. At least we'd be being governed by someone who's lived a little. Rather than someone who wants to ban smoking in pub gardens and limit us all to 2/3rds of a pint.
The only real sin in this life is being a boring prude...
The business about a pint being too much puzzled me. In my youth it was common to come across men who would regularly drink 5 or more pints in an evening pub session. If a pint is too big, there's always the half pint.
One New Year's Eve in Hereford I drank 13 pints. It was five months before my A Levels
13 fucking pints. What was I on? I was clearly indestructible (a theory I tested to, er, destruction, for many years after)
Beer is generally stronger than it used to be. Tastes change. I'm not saying in your particular case but the general 'when I was a youth, they'd be men in t'pub who always drank eight pints after the shift at factory' etc were drinking beers at 3.5% or thereabouts. Rehydrating and getting calories down quickly was important.
Yes, I am sure that is true
No way even as a strapping 17 year old lad I could drink 13 pints of 5.3% beer
Probably it was shite 3.7% Carling Black Label. Still an impressive amount, tho...
When we were that age did pubs and offies even specify the alcohol content of beer? I can't remember it, and it was surely in the interest of brewers and pubs to keep the beer weak so that more was drunk.
It's been a legal requirement since The Weights and Measures Act of 1985.
On the subject of beer. Went out for a nice meal at a local gastro pub, I had a pint of Butcombe, lovely. Mrs P had a glass of rosé, which she enjoyed.
The bill came: beer £4.20, wine £12.50. Wtaf?
I'd be interested to see what the price was for a bottle.
Are we in a time of "order the bottle and keep the cork"?
Even at something like a Pizza Express, you know when you've ordered a glass of wine.
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
All the rumours I have heard, some of them - let us say - from extremely reliable and intimate sources, indicate this is the wrong trail to pursue. But the "rumours" are not unfounded. It;s time for a Naughty Kir Royale
Honestly, if Starmer was secretly doing a Mark Oaten or Keith Vazeline, it would probably improve my perception of the bland bastard. If he was a regular at swingers clubs. Or spanking emporiums. At least we'd be being governed by someone who's lived a little. Rather than someone who wants to ban smoking in pub gardens and limit us all to 2/3rds of a pint.
The only real sin in this life is being a boring prude...
The business about a pint being too much puzzled me. In my youth it was common to come across men who would regularly drink 5 or more pints in an evening pub session. If a pint is too big, there's always the half pint.
One New Year's Eve in Hereford I drank 13 pints. It was five months before my A Levels
13 fucking pints. What was I on? I was clearly indestructible (a theory I tested to, er, destruction, for many years after)
Didn’t William Hague have a similar claim to fame?
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
If Starmer had come out straight away and said this, the scandal would have died ages ago. He could easily have said yes I took these donations, all within the rules (well we will forget about his poor paperwork management), as have all politicians. But, on reflection, we can't give any false impression, so we will strengthen the rules.
I said the other said, the easy things with stuff like tickets, they are donated centrally, and available for MPs of a party to claim. Then those giving the freebies aren't guaranteed anything. And if the same MP turns up in the box of a lobbying firm or a gambling company time and time again, its going to stick to high heaven.
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
Yeah, we seem to have segued tonight from frivolous PB Tory hay-making to crass, nasty garden-variety homophobia. Yuk.
I have moved my "bargaining" target back to week 3 of October.
You think saying someone is gay, is homophobic. If you think about it, this only makes sense if you think that gay is bad, so he's saying something derogatory about a gay person, so he must be homophobic.
Surely even you can see that, if you think it through very carefully?
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
All the rumours I have heard, some of them - let us say - from extremely reliable and intimate sources, indicate this is the wrong trail to pursue. But the "rumours" are not unfounded. It;s time for a Naughty Kir Royale
Honestly, if Starmer was secretly doing a Mark Oaten or Keith Vazeline, it would probably improve my perception of the bland bastard. If he was a regular at swingers clubs. Or spanking emporiums. At least we'd be being governed by someone who's lived a little. Rather than someone who wants to ban smoking in pub gardens and limit us all to 2/3rds of a pint.
The only real sin in this life is being a boring prude...
The business about a pint being too much puzzled me. In my youth it was common to come across men who would regularly drink 5 or more pints in an evening pub session. If a pint is too big, there's always the half pint.
One New Year's Eve in Hereford I drank 13 pints. It was five months before my A Levels
13 fucking pints. What was I on? I was clearly indestructible (a theory I tested to, er, destruction, for many years after)
Didn’t William Hague have a similar claim to fame?
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
Yep. Lots of similar coverage in the FT, which I tend to trust.
The trouble is we still think we're a global power, when really we're a second order economy heavily based on financial services, land banking, and tax exile for the plutocrats of other states. Like it or not, those people are heavy contributors to the treasury, and we force them out at our peril.
It will be a fairer society with them gone, but also a poorer society.
But see also my post below about the twenty somethings saddled with debt going sod this and moving to Dubai. Long term, I'm less worried about the non doms leaving, and more about a brain drain of Brits who see the country as cooked, the property ladder as a ponzi scheme, and realise the grass is greener elsewhere. That is the real danger. People giving up on the UK, turning us all into a kind of greater Eastbourne.
One of our very biggest goals imo should be to engineer a new and stable level of house prices at about 60% of what they are now. Requires a lot of building and a mindset change from property as wealth accretor to property as a place to live. Also need a rebooted public rented sector. Private rental filling the cracks rather than a mainstay.
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
I not sure if you can receive Sky but you should play back Beth Rigby's report just now which was very forthright about the mess Starmer has got into and understand whatever is reported or referenced on here is from the media and broadcast media and they have, and always have had, a gotcha approach and on this story they really do think this is very much in their DNA
Labour have had a poor start . But the Tories have done far worse on the cronyism and corruption . I’m not in the least bit shocked that politicians get gifts. It’s hardly news. What’s worse these gifts or the Tories accepting 15 million from Hester.
One can only imagine the furore if Labour had accepted donations from someone who made anti-Semitic comments but the Tories are now playing the martyr and doing some hysterical pearl clutching over gifts .
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
Yeah, we seem to have segued tonight from frivolous PB Tory hay-making to crass, nasty garden-variety homophobia. Yuk.
Honestly, based on what Mercator has said downthread, my apology to him is couched in irony, but actually genuine.
Please, Conservative party and speaking as a member and a former MP layoff the Prime Minister’s children grow up This pathetic war on dresses and children just shows that you have nothing else to say. I am ashamed. https://x.com/NSoames/status/1839015351490912280
So which Conservatives is he talking about? I thought it was mostly hoi polloi such as reside on here that were discussing it.
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
Why are you using 1985 as an example of a backward time? It wasn't at all. 1955 would be more appropriate.
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
Why are you using 1985 as an example of a backward time? It wasn't at all. 1955 would be more appropriate.
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
I not sure if you can receive Sky but you should play back Beth Rigby's report just now which was very forthright about the mess Starmer has got into and understand whatever is reported or referenced on here is from the media and broadcast media and they have, and always have had, a gotcha approach and on this story they really do think this is very much in their DNA
Labour have had a poor start . But the Tories have done far worse on the cronyism and corruption . I’m not in the least bit shocked that politicians get gifts. It’s hardly news. What’s worse these gifts or the Tories accepting 15 million from Hester.
One can only imagine the furore if Labour had accepted donations from someone who made anti-Semitic comments but the Tories are now playing the martyr and doing some hysterical pearl clutching over gifts .
But it is not the Tories, maybe as much as you would like it to be, but the media that scent blood
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
Yep. Lots of similar coverage in the FT, which I tend to trust.
The trouble is we still think we're a global power, when really we're a second order economy heavily based on financial services, land banking, and tax exile for the plutocrats of other states. Like it or not, those people are heavy contributors to the treasury, and we force them out at our peril.
It will be a fairer society with them gone, but also a poorer society.
But see also my post below about the twenty somethings saddled with debt going sod this and moving to Dubai. Long term, I'm less worried about the non doms leaving, and more about a brain drain of Brits who see the country as cooked, the property ladder as a ponzi scheme, and realise the grass is greener elsewhere. That is the real danger. People giving up on the UK, turning us all into a kind of greater Eastbourne.
I was listening to a popular Gen-Z podcast the couple of days ago, who also run a massive podcasting business making brain rot podcasts for your Love Island type people (don't ask why I was listening). I was quite taken aback how they were very open about how many of their peers have left, and that they are very worried about budget and were considering moving particularly if the sell a big stake in their company.
I see few reasons to stay in the Uk, and many more reasons to go. I imagine that is amplified if you're 23, no commitments, a saddle of uni debt, and bugger all chance of getting on the property ladder.
I have lost several friends to Dubai in the last couple of years and expect more to leave. As I've said downthread, the real problem isn't the non-doms, it's the young and talented deciding there's nothing here for them but an effective 50%+ tax rate and shitty overpriced houseshares.
I know people in their 30s who have buggered off due to the reduction in entrepreneur's relief, but I also know a couple of guys in their 20s who are looking at dubai for a few years as "it's the only way to earn enough to save money for a deposit". That is where the housing crisis has taken us. To a place where skilled workers actually have to bugger off for a few years if they're to stand a hope of ever owning a home in the UK...
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
I not sure if you can receive Sky but you should play back Beth Rigby's report just now which was very forthright about the mess Starmer has got into and understand whatever is reported or referenced on here is from the media and broadcast media and they have, and always have had, a gotcha approach and on this story they really do think this is very much in their DNA
Labour have had a poor start . But the Tories have done far worse on the cronyism and corruption . I’m not in the least bit shocked that politicians get gifts. It’s hardly news. What’s worse these gifts or the Tories accepting 15 million from Hester.
One can only imagine the furore if Labour had accepted donations from someone who made anti-Semitic comments but the Tories are now playing the martyr and doing some hysterical pearl clutching over gifts .
But it is not the Tories, maybe as much as you would like it to be, but the media that scent blood
The media have cremated the story . Time to move on . Labour have annoyed me on a range of other things , I just can’t raise much interest over these gift issues.
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
I not sure if you can receive Sky but you should play back Beth Rigby's report just now which was very forthright about the mess Starmer has got into and understand whatever is reported or referenced on here is from the media and broadcast media and they have, and always have had, a gotcha approach and on this story they really do think this is very much in their DNA
Labour have had a poor start . But the Tories have done far worse on the cronyism and corruption . I’m not in the least bit shocked that politicians get gifts. It’s hardly news. What’s worse these gifts or the Tories accepting 15 million from Hester.
One can only imagine the furore if Labour had accepted donations from someone who made anti-Semitic comments but the Tories are now playing the martyr and doing some hysterical pearl clutching over gifts .
But it is not the Tories, maybe as much as you would like it to be, but the media that scent blood
The media have cremated the story . Time to move on . Labour have annoyed me on a range of other things , I just can’t raise much interest over these gift issues.
Maybe you need to try telling the media to move on
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
I not sure if you can receive Sky but you should play back Beth Rigby's report just now which was very forthright about the mess Starmer has got into and understand whatever is reported or referenced on here is from the media and broadcast media and they have, and always have had, a gotcha approach and on this story they really do think this is very much in their DNA
Labour have had a poor start . But the Tories have done far worse on the cronyism and corruption . I’m not in the least bit shocked that politicians get gifts. It’s hardly news. What’s worse these gifts or the Tories accepting 15 million from Hester.
One can only imagine the furore if Labour had accepted donations from someone who made anti-Semitic comments but the Tories are now playing the martyr and doing some hysterical pearl clutching over gifts .
But it is not the Tories, maybe as much as you would like it to be, but the media that scent blood
That doesn't mean that their sense of smell is correct, however much you might like it to be. After all, they have mis-smelt Starmer before.
I can't help but be reminded of what a previous Conservative PM said on the power of the media;
The papers conducted by Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook are not newspapers in the ordinary acceptance of the term. They are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal wishes, personal likes and dislikes of two men.
Then describing an unfavourable article in the Mail,
The paragraph itself could only have been written by a cad.
What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility— the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.
The more things change, the more some things stay the same.
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
Yep. Lots of similar coverage in the FT, which I tend to trust.
The trouble is we still think we're a global power, when really we're a second order economy heavily based on financial services, land banking, and tax exile for the plutocrats of other states. Like it or not, those people are heavy contributors to the treasury, and we force them out at our peril.
It will be a fairer society with them gone, but also a poorer society.
But see also my post below about the twenty somethings saddled with debt going sod this and moving to Dubai. Long term, I'm less worried about the non doms leaving, and more about a brain drain of Brits who see the country as cooked, the property ladder as a ponzi scheme, and realise the grass is greener elsewhere. That is the real danger. People giving up on the UK, turning us all into a kind of greater Eastbourne.
One of our very biggest goals imo should be to engineer a new and stable level of house prices at about 60% of what they are now. Requires a lot of building and a mindset change from property as wealth accretor to property as a place to live. Also need a rebooted public rented sector. Private rental filling the cracks rather than a mainstay.
Yes, and also putting a stop to the immigration ponzi scheme.
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
I not sure if you can receive Sky but you should play back Beth Rigby's report just now which was very forthright about the mess Starmer has got into and understand whatever is reported or referenced on here is from the media and broadcast media and they have, and always have had, a gotcha approach and on this story they really do think this is very much in their DNA
Labour have had a poor start . But the Tories have done far worse on the cronyism and corruption . I’m not in the least bit shocked that politicians get gifts. It’s hardly news. What’s worse these gifts or the Tories accepting 15 million from Hester.
One can only imagine the furore if Labour had accepted donations from someone who made anti-Semitic comments but the Tories are now playing the martyr and doing some hysterical pearl clutching over gifts .
But it is not the Tories, maybe as much as you would like it to be, but the media that scent blood
That doesn't mean that their sense of smell is correct, however much you might like it to be. After all, they have mis-smelt Starmer before.
I can't help but be reminded of what a previous Conservative PM said on the power of the media;
The papers conducted by Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook are not newspapers in the ordinary acceptance of the term. They are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal wishes, personal likes and dislikes of two men.
Then describing an unfavourable article in the Mail,
The paragraph itself could only have been written by a cad.
What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility— the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.
The more things change, the more some things stay the same.
"the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages" because yeah female sex workers have always been notorious for the power they wield over their male pimps and customers. Surely actually the prerogative of the rich white male public school educated prime minister throughout the ages?
As back to front as the guy on this thread who thinks that calling people gay is homophobic (presumably because you know what they get up to, it's not what god intended, have you seen Brokeback Mountain? Etc)
I notice they are going to 'announce' it, but not actually 'fund it'. After spending 2-3 months complaining about the last government not having allocated funds for things they announced.
They really learn quick! Maybe they are assuming they're a one-term government. "Lasted longer than Liz" is possibly now the true benchmark.
An inexperienced Secret Service agent was stuck on a drone helpline during the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally, a Senate investigation has found.
The report also found that there was no clear chain of command among the Secret Service and other security agencies and no plan for coverage of the building. Officials were operating on multiple, separate radio channels, leading to missed communications.
Not exactly like the Hollywood movies / shows....Kiefer Sutherland stuck on the helpline to DJI...your call is important to us, please hold....tick tick tick...screen fades to timer....23hrs remain....will Keifer get through in time for dinner find out next week on the all new season of 24.
Change the system re donations seems a sensible thing to do. The hysterical reaction by some though to Starmer and co re gifts seems to assume that we’ve all had amnesia and have forgotten what went on during the Bozo clown show .
I’m not a fan of Starmer but really you’d think he shot Bambi given some of the comments in here .
I not sure if you can receive Sky but you should play back Beth Rigby's report just now which was very forthright about the mess Starmer has got into and understand whatever is reported or referenced on here is from the media and broadcast media and they have, and always have had, a gotcha approach and on this story they really do think this is very much in their DNA
Labour have had a poor start . But the Tories have done far worse on the cronyism and corruption . I’m not in the least bit shocked that politicians get gifts. It’s hardly news. What’s worse these gifts or the Tories accepting 15 million from Hester.
One can only imagine the furore if Labour had accepted donations from someone who made anti-Semitic comments but the Tories are now playing the martyr and doing some hysterical pearl clutching over gifts .
But it is not the Tories, maybe as much as you would like it to be, but the media that scent blood
That doesn't mean that their sense of smell is correct, however much you might like it to be. After all, they have mis-smelt Starmer before.
I can't help but be reminded of what a previous Conservative PM said on the power of the media;
The papers conducted by Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook are not newspapers in the ordinary acceptance of the term. They are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal wishes, personal likes and dislikes of two men.
Then describing an unfavourable article in the Mail,
The paragraph itself could only have been written by a cad.
What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility— the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.
The more things change, the more some things stay the same.
The freebie story seems to me a bit of a storm in a teacup. The media love it because it is a story of hypocrisy. I can't deny that for a politician as sanctimonious as Starmer, it is a little entertaining - but hypocrisy is all it is, and it will probably die down before the next election.
What may be a great deal more serious - even if it currently grabs less attention - is the story that coincides with it, of the problems at the centre at Downing Street and tensions between Sue Gray and seemingly everyone else. These seem similar to the problems of Theresa May pre-2017 election, when a couple of her core advisers tried to micromanage people and policy, attempting to exclude party and civil service from the process. Nobody is forcing people to brief to Tim Shipman, and anyone who thinks that he is opposing the current PM simply for not being a Tory or not sucking up to press barons may not be familiar with his writings for the last decade.
The most damaging line from that Sunday Times story is not from some dastardly journalist, but a quote from what Shipman refers to as a 'senior Labour source': "It is probable that Boris Johnson, who Keir regarded as a joke, was more aware and more in control of his Downing Street than Keir."
I really hate this tactic of bringing up a Maureen of Margate, now will you apologise, come on, apologise to Maureen, before she freezes to death this winter....its not a grown up discussion. Also too many times the media will find an individual edge cases and bang on about that.
The discussion should not be about individual cases, it should be at a higher level. If you want to challenge the PM on WFA cut, you should be saying there are x pensioners on £13k-£20k, the average cost of heating a home is, that is y% of their income....
I think he's a gonner. I really do. Stick a fork in him, he's done.
You think he’s going to resign? What price do you make that?
I don’t know. I make it an even chance. It seems to be becoming apparent that Lord Ali's flat is Starmers second (first?) home. That indicates that the reality of Starmer's life is not the one he has attempted to portray. I don't see it as at all possible that the full facts will not be disclosed at this point. And I don’t see how that doesn't lead to either a completely lame zombie PM, or a resignation.
The optics from so many angles are SO bad
Remember Starmer is so principled that he wouldn't let any of his family members use private medicine
OK, but, er, he's happy to take £20,000 worth of WC2 penthouse for his son to privately study, even as he makes private schools non-charitable so ordinary people pay more of their own money; even as he stares at them in disapproval through his free £3k glasses
He has *hypocrite* encoded in his DNA
The spin team he has hired are quite shit aren't they. PM, the press are asking about the use of Lord Alli's flat, lets tell them all about how your son studied there as needed somewhere private to study. OK. Don't check the dates they give line up with GCSE's and Mr country over party / money is also has a policy of bashing private schools. Brings more questions than answers, so more attention to use of the flat....
PM, you seem to have done several public video statements from there when it was WFH mandated....
This all came about because his initial response was I will take whatever donations I want within the rules, I will continue to take donations for suits / glasses.
I somehow don't think Malcolm Tucker Bad Al would have handled it like that.
The dates sort of do add up though, once you factor in the election campaign, which is why the boy needed peace and quiet in Alli Towers. Rishi did not call the election until part way through the exam season.
I really hate this tactic of bringing up a Maureen of Margate, now will you apologise, come on, apologise to Maureen, before she freezes to death this winter....its not a grown up discussion. Also too many times the media will find an individual edge cases and bang on about that.
The discussion should not be about individual cases, it should be at a higher level. If you want to challenge the PM on WFA cut, you should be saying there are x pensioners on £13k-£20k, the average cost of heating a home is, that is y% of their income....
Who cares? Moron Keith sat down with Suzanne and it was a car crash.
That's another couple of hundred thousand not voting for Labour at the next election.
"Allison Pearson I knew about Fayed’s sex abuse but was silenced by a system that protects the rich The same laws that saved Jimmy Savile from jail allowed Mohamed Fayed to escape justice"
If you have this bloke who's gay, and this other bloke who spends lots of time including all nighters at the first bloke's flat, there's one, heavily odds-on explanation for this. Very heavily odds on. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Unrelated fun fact, Oscar Wilde was a married man. With two kids.
#justsaying
Gay panic... in 2024?
Or has Mercator invented a time machine and transported us all back to 1985?
All the rumours I have heard, some of them - let us say - from extremely reliable and intimate sources, indicate this is the wrong trail to pursue. But the "rumours" are not unfounded. It;s time for a Naughty Kir Royale
Honestly, if Starmer was secretly doing a Mark Oaten or Keith Vazeline, it would probably improve my perception of the bland bastard. If he was a regular at swingers clubs. Or spanking emporiums. At least we'd be being governed by someone who's lived a little. Rather than someone who wants to ban smoking in pub gardens and limit us all to 2/3rds of a pint.
The only real sin in this life is being a boring prude...
The business about a pint being too much puzzled me. In my youth it was common to come across men who would regularly drink 5 or more pints in an evening pub session. If a pint is too big, there's always the half pint.
One New Year's Eve in Hereford I drank 13 pints. It was five months before my A Levels
13 fucking pints. What was I on? I was clearly indestructible (a theory I tested to, er, destruction, for many years after)
Beer is generally stronger than it used to be. Tastes change. I'm not saying in your particular case but the general 'when I was a youth, they'd be men in t'pub who always drank eight pints after the shift at factory' etc were drinking beers at 3.5% or thereabouts. Rehydrating and getting calories down quickly was important.
The average strength of beer prior to WWI was typically about 6%, possibly greater. Even 'Mild' was in this ballpark.
The currently accepted ABVs only came about as a result of the 'Lloyd George's Beer' regulations which incentivised brewers to weaken their offerings.
And in more recent times legislation has resulted in various taxation cut-off points that have resulted in beers being reduced to levels beneath certain strengths. Specifically 7.4% and 3.4%.
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
Yep. Lots of similar coverage in the FT, which I tend to trust.
The trouble is we still think we're a global power, when really we're a second order economy heavily based on financial services, land banking, and tax exile for the plutocrats of other states. Like it or not, those people are heavy contributors to the treasury, and we force them out at our peril.
It will be a fairer society with them gone, but also a poorer society.
But see also my post below about the twenty somethings saddled with debt going sod this and moving to Dubai. Long term, I'm less worried about the non doms leaving, and more about a brain drain of Brits who see the country as cooked, the property ladder as a ponzi scheme, and realise the grass is greener elsewhere. That is the real danger. People giving up on the UK, turning us all into a kind of greater Eastbourne.
Britain's problem is we have sold the family silver, so the profits (and the subsidy cheques) flow out of the country.
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
And on the subject of non doms this from the Guardian
Yep. Lots of similar coverage in the FT, which I tend to trust.
The trouble is we still think we're a global power, when really we're a second order economy heavily based on financial services, land banking, and tax exile for the plutocrats of other states. Like it or not, those people are heavy contributors to the treasury, and we force them out at our peril.
It will be a fairer society with them gone, but also a poorer society.
But see also my post below about the twenty somethings saddled with debt going sod this and moving to Dubai. Long term, I'm less worried about the non doms leaving, and more about a brain drain of Brits who see the country as cooked, the property ladder as a ponzi scheme, and realise the grass is greener elsewhere. That is the real danger. People giving up on the UK, turning us all into a kind of greater Eastbourne.
Britain's problem is we have sold the family silver, so the profits (and the subsidy cheques) flow out of the country.
I agree, but I think the problem is there's no plan for the future. Mistakes were made, but now what's the plan to dig the country out of the hole it is in.
The Tories had no answer but managed decline, we await the October budget to find out if it's austerity max or tax and spend.
Neither will dig us out of the hole - as I mentioned below, both will encourage our youngest and brightest to bugger off for better opportunities.
"Allison Pearson I knew about Fayed’s sex abuse but was silenced by a system that protects the rich The same laws that saved Jimmy Savile from jail allowed Mohamed Fayed to escape justice"
"Allison Pearson I knew about Fayed’s sex abuse but was silenced by a system that protects the rich The same laws that saved Jimmy Savile from jail allowed Mohamed Fayed to escape justice"
New York Times - Mayor Eric Adams Is Indicted on Federal Charges
The New York City mayor was indicted following a federal corruption investigation, according to people briefed on the case. He is the first sitting mayor of the city to face criminal charges.
New York Times - Mayor Eric Adams Is Indicted on Federal Charges
The New York City mayor was indicted following a federal corruption investigation, according to people briefed on the case. He is the first sitting mayor of the city to face criminal charges.
Wasn't he supposed to be a safe pair of hands, moving past all the Defund the Police nonsense, etc. Seems people of NYC and NY not having a lot of luck with their elected officials recently.
A possible problem with this is that it might be appealed to the Supreme Court in 1st Amendment grounds. And the current lot might well rule there's a right to such inflammatory lies by politicians ?
New York Times - Mayor Eric Adams Is Indicted on Federal Charges
The New York City mayor was indicted following a federal corruption investigation, according to people briefed on the case. He is the first sitting mayor of the city to face criminal charges.
New York Times - Mayor Eric Adams Is Indicted on Federal Charges
The New York City mayor was indicted following a federal corruption investigation, according to people briefed on the case. He is the first sitting mayor of the city to face criminal charges.
Another fairly clear demonstration that Trump's claims about being politically targeted by the Justice Dept are bullshit.
• Went to trial and convicted the since-resigned Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez
New York Times - Mayor Eric Adams Is Indicted on Federal Charges
The New York City mayor was indicted following a federal corruption investigation, according to people briefed on the case. He is the first sitting mayor of the city to face criminal charges.
Let's just ignore the fact that AI could be a serious threat to humanity if it gets out of control.
Current AIs are not a threat to humanity.
What is a threat to humanity are people who believe that these AIs are really intelligent, and put trust in them in stupid ways. Just like any computer system.
That growth agenda seems to be down the list of importance....France and Germany make sure he is included.
The world's richest person, Elon Musk, has not been invited to the UK government's International Investment Summit in response to his social media posts during last month’s riots, the BBC understands.
He is a regular at the equivalent French summit. In July, he attended a three-hour lunch with top executives with President Emmanuel Macron ahead of the Olympics earlier this summer.
Trump: We wouldn't have hostile takeovers of Springfield, Ohio, Aurora, Colorado, where they are actually going in with massive machine gun-type equipment. They are going in with guns that are beyond even military scope, and they are taking over… https://x.com/Acyn/status/1838992712584053018
Allies including the US, UK and EU have called for a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon, following an escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
The 12-strong bloc proposed an immediate 21-day pause in fighting "to provide space for diplomacy towards the conclusion of a diplomatic settlement" and a ceasefire in Gaza.
Mind you, the great man himself has a warning for the audience. ..Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who is re-working the 2003 album for the show, described the project as an "interesting and intimidating challenge"...
And the director her own, rather more alarming health warning. ..Jones said the first time she saw Radiohead live was on the Hail to The Thief tour in 2003. "It changed my DNA," she recalled...
Mind you, the great man himself has a warning for the audience. ..Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who is re-working the 2003 album for the show, described the project as an "interesting and intimidating challenge"...
And the director her own, rather more alarming health warning. ..Jones said the first time she saw Radiohead live was on the Hail to The Thief tour in 2003. "It changed my DNA," she recalled...
Sounds like we might have some competition to the errrh greatest of Radiohead Live at Glastonbury...
New York Times - Mayor Eric Adams Is Indicted on Federal Charges
The New York City mayor was indicted following a federal corruption investigation, according to people briefed on the case. He is the first sitting mayor of the city to face criminal charges.
The US only has two non-dysfunctional institutions left, the Southern District of New York and the Federal Reserve.
I missed this yesterday. Sign of how dysfunctional the prison system is, it isn't really even news anymore...
Dozens let out of prison under emergency release scheme were freed by mistake....One of those mistakenly released is understood to have allegedly reoffended, charged with 'intentionally touching' a woman. He was recalled to prison.
Democrats got the courts to say third party candidates West and Cruz shouldn't be on the ballot because they didn't file petitions correctly. Republicans (Raffensperger) left them on the ballot anyway.
Now the Georgia Supreme Court has decided they shouldn't be on the ballot. But it's apparently too late to change the ballot papers or even reprogram voting machines (!). So their names stay on the ballot but their votes won't be counted. With signs put up in polling stations saying they have been disqualified.
Sir Graham Brady's book is out today, Thursday. Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers.
Bit of a clunky title.
Really? I think 'Sir' gives him a bit of class.
Don't know about that....recent history suggests some Sir's act more like Love Island z-list celebs when somebody offers any sort of freebie....they give 'em to anybody these days.
They are still taking the dodgy Asian come out of nowhere betting companies I see. I find that quite incredible that the EPL let this go on. Its been exposed that its all as dodgy as hell.
Sir Graham Brady's book is out today, Thursday. Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers.
Bit of a clunky title.
Really? I think 'Sir' gives him a bit of class.
Don't know about that....recent history suggests some Sir's act more like Love Island z-list celebs when somebody offers any sort of freebie....they give 'em to anybody these days.
These days ? Useless old Bufton MPs have ways tended to get knighthoods.
Sir Graham Brady's book is out today, Thursday. Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers.
Bit of a clunky title.
Really? I think 'Sir' gives him a bit of class.
Don't know about that....recent history suggests some Sir's act more like Love Island z-list celebs when somebody offers any sort of freebie....they give 'em to anybody these days.
These days ? Useless old Bufton MPs have ways tended to get knighthoods.
But we aren't likely to see them at Taylor Swift concerts in Stone Island tops.
Looks like the campaign are sending him things to Tweet out (X out?), rather than his usual ramblings on the same subjects. He’s starting to look more organised.
Looks like the campaign are sending him things to Tweet out (X out?), rather than his usual ramblings on the same subjects. He’s starting to look more organised.
"Of course he should accept a £20,000 bung just so his son's exams won't be disrupted."
Also PB Lefties:
"Ha ha ha ha. Look at all those poor rich kids having their educations disrupted because they're having to move schools because of VAT on school fees."
(BTW, apparently the impact assessment on the change has not yet been done...)
"Of course he should accept a £20,000 bung just so his son's exams won't be disrupted."
Also PB Lefties:
"Ha ha ha ha. Look at all those poor rich kids having their educations disrupted because they're having to move schools because of VAT on school fees."
(BTW, apparently the impact assessment on the change has not yet been done...)
This is also from the man who claims he wouldn't pay for private healthcare if one of his loved ones needed it due to his socialist principles.....
Somebody is free to correct me but so far everyone who says this is terminal for SKS are the same people that called for him to resign when he had a beer whilst he ate a curry. So their judgment is perhaps not totally impartial.
I agree that the gifts do not look good but surely the solution is to legislate against MPs getting them altogether? The Tories are hardly innocent in this matter either.
What I am not quite understanding is that people are implying SKS is corrupt. But I can't see any evidence of that thus far. The majority of gifts seem to be from a long-term Labour donor and member and I can't see what influence they have bought beyond them supporting the Labour Party.
I predict that this issue will run for some time - but it's not fatal for SKS nor the government. The Tories are about to elect somebody totally irrelevant and who the public dislike. They are still prepared to give Labour the benefit of the doubt based on recent polls and that will all come down to delivery.
People forget that with Partygate it was that the government set rules and then didn't follow them. That isn't the case here as far as I can see. The rules themselves are what seem to stink.
You are almost certainly right, but perhaps this is one of those many cases where the famous dictum “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger” is not true. He will be weakened by it, even if only slightly.
Yes and no.
If the endgame here is a tightening up of the rules on freebies for MPs, that will generally hurt the right more than the left (that's mostly where the money is) and the opposition more than the government (they need cash and perks more and aren't currently subject to ministerial codes.)
When the dust settles, it's what I'd recommend.
Which is why smarter Tories aren't going anywhere near the story. See Badenoch's response, and she'd normally be well up for a fight.
Not many "smarter Tories" on PB then.
We’re not fucking MPs you stupid dork
Gosh that's quite the response to a bit of banter.
You OK chicken?
Happity doody, just feeling quite feisty
Two gin and tonics into the evening, making a laksa (my favourite cook-at-home meal), arranging drinks with a friend tomorrow, got a function at the weekend, daughters doing OK at Uni and Ozzie A Levels, got travel next week to multiple interesting places
A good moment. And now Labour collapsing all over the shop and the PB lefties weeping and asking us not to "destabilise the realm"
lololol!
Yes. I'm in a good mood, in a sometimes dark world
Since you've decided Labour is collapsing, I think we can all be confident they will be in office for the next 10 years at least. Best try to get used to it.
Seriously though, the upcoming budget is key to everything.
And it's going to be fucking shit, and might destroy confidence in the country.
Zero faith in this government to get it right.
And that's an unsurprising view for you to hold. If it turns out to be true you'll quite rightly say I told you so.
Unfortunately though, you'll be saying 'I told you so' even when the budget is successful.
How can it be.... successful? This is blatantly a government with zero ideas. They are managers, not innovators. Seriously, what about Reeves and Starmer, the straight man and the straight man of comedy British politics, makes you think they have good new ideas?!
They have none
The Budget will confirm various horrors and make vague unfounded promises of a brighter future. That's it
We'll see. Not long to wait.
Feel free to make your predix
This is not meant in a hostile way, I genuinely cannot think of a brilliant new policy that Labour can wheel out. If you can, do please tell, it would cheer me up (politically; personally I am feeling benign)
The more I ponder our fate, the more I think Truss was probably right. She just fucked up the process MONUMENTALLY, and did it at the wrong time of the electoral cycle
Well, I know what I'd like them to do but I'm not confident they'll have the balls to do it:
1. Increase taxation levels to northern European levels to reduce improve public services, invest in infrastructure and reduce the deficit. 2. Those additional taxes to be targeted at unearned income and wealth (includes me) rather than the working population. 3. Aggressively attack benefit and government contract fraud. 4. Attack the black economy (banning cash would do it - only joking).
The problem is how you increase taxes in a knowledge economy where people are globally mobile. It's less about non doms with millions, and more about twenty somethings saddled with 50k of student debt, an effective 50%+ tax rate, and 2k a month to live in a grotty houseshare going, sod this, I'll move to Dubai and pay bugger all.
Culturally in the UK, people are just not prepared to pay Scandi levels of tax to achieve a social democrat style society. People pay lip service to wanting better NHS services, a fairer society, etc. But when it comes down to it, nobody wants to put their hand in their pocket. So you get government after government paying lip service to the idea while delivering nothing.
Meanwhile the economy continues to stagnate.
There’s certainly lots of British twentysomethings in Dubai, and they have a wide variety of outcomes:
Some stay a few years, save money, and go back with their deposit. Some stay a few years, have one hell of a party and leave when they lose their job, hoping to avoid being chased for debts. Some get promoted to jobs that simply aren’t available in the UK, or that pay disproportionally high, and leave after perhaps a couple of decades with retirement money. Perhaps they wait for their kids to finish school here, or have packed them off to boarding schools in the UK. Some get married to a foreigner and stick with expat life. (Waves from the sandpit). Some will have a different story. Living in Dubai and working in Saudi is popular at the moment for example. Wives and kids especially don’t like living in Saudi. Planes are full between the countries at the start and end of the work week.
The entrepreneurs are in a very different category. They’re either running UK-based businesses from here, or are setting up businesses here and investing millions. They can get 10-year Golden Visas, sponsoring themselves, and can choose to live anywhere. Perhaps they’ll retire or move back to the UK as their parents get elderly, or perhaps they’ll eventually sell their business and live somewhere else, perhaps they’ll hand over to their kids and sail off around the world. Each person in this category would be paying at least tens of millions in UK taxes, were they to continue to live in the UK. It only needs a few thousand in this position, or a few dozen of the top 0.001%, to have a material effect on the UK taxes take.
"Allison Pearson I knew about Fayed’s sex abuse but was silenced by a system that protects the rich The same laws that saved Jimmy Savile from jail allowed Mohamed Fayed to escape justice"
“Like The Godfather’s Don Corleone, to whom Penny Simpson compares him, Fayed would shower the powerful and famous with gifts and freebies; favours he could call in at any time.
There were 30 flats at 60 Park Lane and many household names enjoyed his hospitality.“
Comments
Lord Wahid Alli is described as a "Father Christmas" figure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8n_Gh173C8&t=1436s
Surely residents of Minge Lane you could collectively put in to the council to gentrify that to Fanny Way or similar?
Anyway, the sums either way are relatively small beer. It's a manifesto commitment, I'd be very surprised if Labour don't push it through.
2) Like expenses, everybody will be exposed to some degree. And today's gotcha media, there is no rooms of nuance or explanation. Furthermore, all the focus has been the supermarket sweep-esque nature of the gifts (Tories will have also accepted things like tickets), we have lost the original story which is pass given, when was it actually withdrawn, and other donors got impartial civil service jobs. And like expenses, the media loves the "ohhh look Taylor Swift concert", not the parts of the story that require some leg work e.g. these value for freebies, do they look right, who / why was with them.
One to ponder.
https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/article-821666
Are we in a time of "order the bottle and keep the cork"?
Even at something like a Pizza Express, you know when you've ordered a glass of wine.
I said the other said, the easy things with stuff like tickets, they are donated centrally, and available for MPs of a party to claim. Then those giving the freebies aren't guaranteed anything. And if the same MP turns up in the box of a lobbying firm or a gambling company time and time again, its going to stick to high heaven.
You think saying someone is gay, is homophobic. If you think about it, this only makes sense if you think that gay is bad, so he's saying something derogatory about a gay person, so he must be homophobic.
Surely even you can see that, if you think it through very carefully?
(Hat tip Christopher Brookmyre in A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away)
https://x.com/miramurati/status/1839025700009030027
https://x.com/Yuchenj_UW/status/1839030011376054454
Another @Leon collectors’ item. In gin-o veritas.
One can only imagine the furore if Labour had accepted donations from someone who made anti-Semitic comments but the Tories are now playing the martyr and doing some hysterical pearl clutching over gifts .
I posted it as a curiosity.
But it is not the Tories, maybe as much as you would like it to be, but the media that scent blood
I have lost several friends to Dubai in the last couple of years and expect more to leave. As I've said downthread, the real problem isn't the non-doms, it's the young and talented deciding there's nothing here for them but an effective 50%+ tax rate and shitty overpriced houseshares.
I know people in their 30s who have buggered off due to the reduction in entrepreneur's relief, but I also know a couple of guys in their 20s who are looking at dubai for a few years as "it's the only way to earn enough to save money for a deposit". That is where the housing crisis has taken us. To a place where skilled workers actually have to bugger off for a few years if they're to stand a hope of ever owning a home in the UK...
This is by a nonprofit, and I'd say it is the Ohio equivalent of a Private Prosecution in this country.
(Apologies if this is a repost.)
https://news.sky.com/story/haitian-immigrant-group-files-criminal-charges-against-trump-and-vance-over-springfield-pet-eating-claims-13221652
I can't help but be reminded of what a previous Conservative PM said on the power of the media;
The papers conducted by Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook are not newspapers in the ordinary acceptance of the term. They are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal wishes, personal likes and dislikes of two men.
Then describing an unfavourable article in the Mail,
The paragraph itself could only have been written by a cad.
What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility— the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.
The more things change, the more some things stay the same.
https://x.com/AndrewCurran_/status/1839037623756796196?t=HwkHK7k1WuCUXptcbOsTdg
"Exclusive: OpenAl to remove non-profit control and give Sam Altman equity, sources say"
As back to front as the guy on this thread who thinks that calling people gay is homophobic (presumably because you know what they get up to, it's not what god intended, have you seen Brokeback Mountain? Etc)
Cos, yeah. Have to substitute for the real thing.
Tory press hammering away at Klouseau. Harlots.
They really learn quick! Maybe they are assuming they're a one-term government. "Lasted longer than Liz" is possibly now the true benchmark.
"Keir Starmer struggles to fix morale at ‘weird’ Labour conference"
https://www.ft.com/content/483d6215-613d-45f5-b068-843b0303be51
The report also found that there was no clear chain of command among the Secret Service and other security agencies and no plan for coverage of the building. Officials were operating on multiple, separate radio channels, leading to missed communications.
Not exactly like the Hollywood movies / shows....Kiefer Sutherland stuck on the helpline to DJI...your call is important to us, please hold....tick tick tick...screen fades to timer....23hrs remain....will Keifer get through in time for dinner find out next week on the all new season of 24.
The media love it because it is a story of hypocrisy. I can't deny that for a politician as sanctimonious as Starmer, it is a little entertaining - but hypocrisy is all it is, and it will probably die down before the next election.
What may be a great deal more serious - even if it currently grabs less attention - is the story that coincides with it, of the problems at the centre at Downing Street and tensions between Sue Gray and seemingly everyone else. These seem similar to the problems of Theresa May pre-2017 election, when a couple of her core advisers tried to micromanage people and policy, attempting to exclude party and civil service from the process.
Nobody is forcing people to brief to Tim Shipman, and anyone who thinks that he is opposing the current PM simply for not being a Tory or not sucking up to press barons may not be familiar with his writings for the last decade.
The most damaging line from that Sunday Times story is not from some dastardly journalist, but a quote from what Shipman refers to as a 'senior Labour source': "It is probable that Boris Johnson, who Keir regarded as a joke, was more aware and more in control of his Downing Street than Keir."
Wriggle. Wriggle. Wriggle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cYFjqoBC_Q
The discussion should not be about individual cases, it should be at a higher level. If you want to challenge the PM on WFA cut, you should be saying there are x pensioners on £13k-£20k, the average cost of heating a home is, that is y% of their income....
That's another couple of hundred thousand not voting for Labour at the next election.
Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey
I knew about Fayed’s sex abuse but was silenced by a system that protects the rich
The same laws that saved Jimmy Savile from jail allowed Mohamed Fayed to escape justice"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/25/mohamed-fayed-allegations-truth0/
The average strength of beer prior to WWI was typically about 6%, possibly greater. Even 'Mild' was in this ballpark.
The currently accepted ABVs only came about as a result of the 'Lloyd George's Beer' regulations which incentivised brewers to weaken their offerings.
And in more recent times legislation has resulted in various taxation cut-off points that have resulted in beers being reduced to levels beneath certain strengths. Specifically 7.4% and 3.4%.
The Tories had no answer but managed decline, we await the October budget to find out if it's austerity max or tax and spend.
Neither will dig us out of the hole - as I mentioned below, both will encourage our youngest and brightest to bugger off for better opportunities.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3dFHa31qxQ8
Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers.
The New York City mayor was indicted following a federal corruption investigation, according to people briefed on the case. He is the first sitting mayor of the city to face criminal charges.
Nate Silvrr tipped him as Biden's replacement.
Pfizer withdraws sickle cell disease treatment on risk of complication, death
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pfizer-withdraws-sickle-cell-disease-211734737.html
Current gene therapy treatments aren't without risk (possibly related to the delivery method in this case.)
• Went to trial and convicted the since-resigned Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez
• Secured felony convictions against Biden’s son
• Indicted Dem Rep Henry Cuellar
• Indicted Dem NYC Mayor Eric Adams
👆 This Justice Department is accused of “targeting” the president’s enemies
https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/1839132062294352005
https://x.com/daveweigel/status/1839116545378726111
What is a threat to humanity are people who believe that these AIs are really intelligent, and put trust in them in stupid ways. Just like any computer system.
The world's richest person, Elon Musk, has not been invited to the UK government's International Investment Summit in response to his social media posts during last month’s riots, the BBC understands.
He is a regular at the equivalent French summit. In July, he attended a three-hour lunch with top executives with President Emmanuel Macron ahead of the Olympics earlier this summer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c756d56d2dro
Trump: We wouldn't have hostile takeovers of Springfield, Ohio, Aurora, Colorado, where they are actually going in with massive machine gun-type equipment. They are going in with guns that are beyond even military scope, and they are taking over…
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1838992712584053018
The 12-strong bloc proposed an immediate 21-day pause in fighting "to provide space for diplomacy towards the conclusion of a diplomatic settlement" and a ceasefire in Gaza.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20m1d77m86o
Will Israel take any notice?
William Shakespeare's Hamlet is to be combined with Radiohead's album Hail to the Thief for an unusual new stage show.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8d25wzd8wo
Mind you, the great man himself has a warning for the audience.
..Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who is re-working the 2003 album for the show, described the project as an "interesting and intimidating challenge"...
And the director her own, rather more alarming health warning.
..Jones said the first time she saw Radiohead live was on the Hail to The Thief tour in 2003.
"It changed my DNA," she recalled...
Kamala 2025
https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1839135960027599177?s=61
Dozens let out of prison under emergency release scheme were freed by mistake....One of those mistakenly released is understood to have allegedly reoffended, charged with 'intentionally touching' a woman. He was recalled to prison.
https://news.sky.com/story/dozens-let-out-of-prison-under-emergency-release-scheme-were-freed-by-mistake-13221988
https://apnews.com/article/georgia-election-cornel-west-cruz-ballot-access-7e819ec5e06925e88bc36a20b0d69526
Democrats got the courts to say third party candidates West and Cruz shouldn't be on the ballot because they didn't file petitions correctly. Republicans (Raffensperger) left them on the ballot anyway.
Now the Georgia Supreme Court has decided they shouldn't be on the ballot. But it's apparently too late to change the ballot papers or even reprogram voting machines (!). So their names stay on the ballot but their votes won't be counted. With signs put up in polling stations saying they have been disqualified.
Shambles.
Surrender America to its enemies.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/sep/26/premier-league-clubs-code-on-advertising-gambling-under-18s
They are still taking the dodgy Asian come out of nowhere betting companies I see. I find that quite incredible that the EPL let this go on. Its been exposed that its all as dodgy as hell.
The obscure gambling firms with untraceable employees working with your football club
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/3029318/2021/12/28/revealed-the-obscure-gambling-firms-with-untraceable-employees-working-with-your-football-club/
Useless old Bufton MPs have ways tended to get knighthoods.
https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1839151365769027695
https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1839138130575733233
https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1839140347835801697
https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1839151938354413777
Looks like the campaign are sending him things to Tweet out (X out?), rather than his usual ramblings on the same subjects. He’s starting to look more organised.
So it is possible to gild the lily!
Surrender America to its enemies.
That's all *you* should care about.
Trump seems to be, belatedly, upping his game,
"Of course he should accept a £20,000 bung just so his son's exams won't be disrupted."
Also PB Lefties:
"Ha ha ha ha. Look at all those poor rich kids having their educations disrupted because they're having to move schools because of VAT on school fees."
(BTW, apparently the impact assessment on the change has not yet been done...)
Complex character is our Keir...
Some stay a few years, save money, and go back with their deposit.
Some stay a few years, have one hell of a party and leave when they lose their job, hoping to avoid being chased for debts.
Some get promoted to jobs that simply aren’t available in the UK, or that pay disproportionally high, and leave after perhaps a couple of decades with retirement money. Perhaps they wait for their kids to finish school here, or have packed them off to boarding schools in the UK.
Some get married to a foreigner and stick with expat life. (Waves from the sandpit).
Some will have a different story. Living in Dubai and working in Saudi is popular at the moment for example. Wives and kids especially don’t like living in Saudi. Planes are full between the countries at the start and end of the work week.
The entrepreneurs are in a very different category. They’re either running UK-based businesses from here, or are setting up businesses here and investing millions. They can get 10-year Golden Visas, sponsoring themselves, and can choose to live anywhere. Perhaps they’ll retire or move back to the UK as their parents get elderly, or perhaps they’ll eventually sell their business and live somewhere else, perhaps they’ll hand over to their kids and sail off around the world. Each person in this category would be paying at least tens of millions in UK taxes, were they to continue to live in the UK. It only needs a few thousand in this position, or a few dozen of the top 0.001%, to have a material effect on the UK taxes take.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/25/2141233/openai-to-remove-non-profit-control-and-give-sam-altman-equity
“Like The Godfather’s Don Corleone, to whom Penny Simpson compares him, Fayed would shower the powerful and famous with gifts and freebies; favours he could call in at any time.
There were 30 flats at 60 Park Lane and many household names enjoyed his hospitality.“